


Radiant as a Gravity Well

by adoxyinherear



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29162094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adoxyinherear/pseuds/adoxyinherear
Summary: Torian Cadera falls hard.
Relationships: Female Bounty Hunter/Torian Cadera
Kudos: 20





	Radiant as a Gravity Well

Torian hadn’t been surprised that the Champion was a woman. He wasn’t even surprised that she was beautiful.

What did surprise him was just how preoccupied he became with these three things realized in one person.

He’d felt the heat rising on his neck when she walked past him to be formally recognized by the Huntmaster and knew it wasn’t that his armor was too snug. He’d noted her smile - brazen, confident, and just a touch overwhelmed by the honor of where she stood and what she represented - and felt his own lips twitch in response. She didn’t look at him, wouldn’t have been able to pick a single face out of the massive crowd of assembled Mandalorians, but he was so keen on the idea of being seen by her that he almost joined the others who circled to congratulate her, to touch her armored shoulder, to meet her crew. 

Torian watched her instead: the way she’d mastered resting a hand on her hip, near enough for a lethal quickdraw but not overtly threatening. The way she laughed, head tilted slightly forward, inviting an intimacy with the person she was laughing with. Her eyes, bright and sharp and aware of each person who got close enough to touch or be touched - to stab or punch or kick, to assault or be assaulted. She had a perimeter, and just because you were inside it didn’t mean you were safe. 

Torian realized she wasn’t just beautiful.

She was radiant as a gravity well, irresistible. 

When she appeared in their camp on Dromund Kass a week later he let himself be drawn in. Jogo couldn’t have known what he was dealing with. She saw right through the other Mandalorian - the brute force Jogo applied to every situation, the blind devotion to the power of a blade or a blaster rifle. She knew there was more to every hunt, every kill. Torian wanted her to know that he knew there was more, too.

Emerging from the cavern hours later with bloodied boots and sweat on her brow, her smile was a cousin to the one Torian had seen on her face when she was named Champion. It was pure energy, the kinetic thrill that accompanies a worthy hunt, a masterful kill. She was sharpened, charged, an active volcano. 

She was more than the Champion.

She was a Mandalorian, now. 

Weeks later with the Devaronian grumbling at her side she hunted Torian’s quarry on Taris. And then she hunted him, like he might lead her to his father. It wasn’t until he drew a blaster on her and she’d disarmed him and had him defenseless on his back in less than six seconds that he realized she had every reason to suspect he might: Torian was hardly at his best when she was around. 

They worked together instead. She took the shots he should’ve taken, her grunts of pain almost perfunctory. He scouted and laid traps before getting caught in one himself. Jicoln Cadera might not have been a Mandalorian any longer, but he still knew how to hunt. 

But then she let Torian do what he had come to Taris to do: confront his father. Kill him. It didn't happen the way Torian thought it would, hadn’t been simple, hadn’t been without revelations. 

And he hadn’t been alone.

When the time came to collect his father’s body and leave Taris, the honor of Torian’s clan finally his own to claim, he knew exactly how he wanted to begin.

“Need to ask you a favor, Champion. I want to come with you.”

Moons couldn’t choose their orbits but people could. She was a woman, strong and capable and smart as a Rattataki, and it wasn’t a surprise, wasn’t a distraction. 

Couldn’t be, after Torian admitted to himself that he wanted her to be his. 


End file.
